


We are going to Hell

by uncanarioenunaminadecarbon



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Depression, F/M, Filming, Gay Sex, Heavy Angst, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Harm, Sick Character, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-01 00:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13986840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uncanarioenunaminadecarbon/pseuds/uncanarioenunaminadecarbon
Summary: Finally Call me by your name is going to happen. Timothée Chalamet, a young unknown actor, is waiting for his co-star Armie Hammer to arrive while he slowly dies in Crema. Yeah, that´s right. 19 years old and already knocking on heaven´s door. His friend and doctor, Mike, keeps an eye on him, close to the italian villa, and Timmy can´t stop his mind from thinking that life is not fair at all. But then Armie greets him and everything gets awfully surrealistic. He feels things when he was told he wouldn´t. He believes hell is far away again, but then he looks at the clock, and the world makes him remember about his lack of a future. Why is everything blossoming now? Why does he cry every time Oliver says "later"?





	1. Chapter 1

I´m dying again. It doesn´t stop while I sleep to give me another chance with dawn.  
It was still raining when I woke up in the italian hotel Luca had picked for the cast. Still dark. Still in pain. My arms are there, but I can´t feel them. It´s not a good day, again. I look at the roof, blue under the moonlight. This town is so beautiful and sad, with a dark melancholy mistery on every corner. Mother used to say that about my eyes. I try to forget, searching for something to do on the deserted room.  
I reach for my bagpack in the darkness that covers the floor, it looks like the single sized bed that holds me is a boat lost on the ocean. This town and its fucking tragic aesthetic. Luca was right. I would find myself in this place. My reflex was on every piece of grass, star and wall here. No wonder I study drama. For the twelfth time since I arrived two hours ago, I sigh like a damsel in distress. I couldn´t help it: I always put on a show, a comedy mask, even when I´m alone. Maybe I shouldn´t have come, I already feel like I know this place by heart. I needed everything but my thoughts in my life.  
I keep on looking for the plastic box while I check how the room looks. It´s small and warm. If you turn on the light you see the walls´ true color: soft peachy orange. It´s not fancy, but I don´t need it to be. Its not my aim in life to have big dressing rooms on crazy expensive theaters everytime I land a play role, nor a suite with a jacuzzi and a chair with my name if I travel to London or Paris to film. I just like to think about eccentric rich people living like kings and queens and believing that´s happiness.  
Finally I find it: a pill organiser, not small but very cold against my hand. I see it, but I have no strength at all to close my fingers around it. I inhale and do it anyways, effortlessly. I´ll never understand my body. It doesn´t work sometimes and then…Then I take my meds with a bit of water. I remember the words on my favorite book “He was waiting for his brother to kill his pain, even if it meant to kill all of him”.  
If only I had one to love me as much. If only I had someone to talk about this. “Pathetic again, loser?” I hear my mind asking with a raspy voice. That fucker never choose silence. After tearing up for thirty more minutes, my pulse gets even, and I go back to sleep.

A week has passed since I got here and Crema still looks like me stretch out to cover a whole town. It´s a dream come true, a fairy-tale place who got stuck in time. Everything looked like it had been build on 1810 but it was somehow alive, like the colorful roses on Luca´s garden, more alive than I was, anyway. More than this shooting star wannabe, as my bullies in school called me, but I was perfected to be imperfect: now I added to the fucked up list my brand new insensitive arms.  
I keep moving. I know where everything is because I go for a ride with Luca´s bike trice a day, and I already had two piano lessons. It´s fucking difficult when you don´t feel your arms moving or your fingers touching the keys, but I managed. The teacher, a funny looking man with auburn hair was very patience and kind to me. I almost smile when people greet you like that.  
Now I´m practicing a Bach piece on the guitar. The same I have to learn on the piano. One of them actually. I feel better with the keys though, I don´t like pulling at the strings, seems a bit violent. The sky is exploding with light, some clouds drift away and the birds discuss important stuff between branches and leaves. The warm air hums around me softly as if it was whispering to me “You are in Crema, don´t forget”.  
I thought I was forgetting already, like a dying cellphone battery. And then Silvia, my guitar professor repeats “Hey, Timmy, did you hear me?”  
“Sorry, what?”  
Her kind hazel eyes are worried. “The lesson is over. Are you alright?” Silvia´s thick Italian accent is invisible again, guarded inside her mouth forming a serious line. “Timmy?”  
“Me ok”  
She smiles and pats me in the shoulder. When she walks away Luca brings me some tea and far away an auburn head caughts my eye: time for more piano killing.  
I´m especially awful at playing today. And not because of my arms, it´s my nerves. My head is just so worked up, and it´s Luca´s fault. When he gave me the cup of tea he said “Armie´s car is on the way”. It´s the third time he does that joke to me. The first two times it was a little white lie or whatever. I died with anticipation and nothing happened, no car on the road. I was so excited to meet him, he is such a good actor and he sounds so nice over the phone that I´ve been counting the days, the minutes for him to arrive. But Luca is having fun with his cheeky crap and then he just tells me “Timmy, caro, he is not coming yet” and I run to him with a killing glare while he cracks up. I adore the guy but if the situation repeats itself this Italian shepherd is getting killed. I will haunt him for the rest of my life and death if he sticks to the actual children tale plot where the shepherd warned the whole town “the wolf is coming” and it was a joke, and then again and again till the freacking wolf was coming and no one believe the shepherd´s tale and his poor sheeps got eaten. Simple and sad as that ´cause as Andie, my black mate from the Bronx used to say to anyone who would listen “Timmy is a wild sheep. White, soft, furry, free and violent. If you fuck with him, he´ll cut you like a nigga!”. I used to laugh my ass off at that, but now I swear if Luca tricks me and the Wolf finds me clueless, I ´m gonna cut all his shirts with a pair of scissors. Even the one with Bowie´s lightning drawn.  
Yes, Armie is the Wolf. I tried to focus but I´m helpless, I watch the door all the time, the sheet music and the keys very far, buried in my mind. I don´t know if I´m even reaching for them anymore. My teacher is suppressing his anger by using the other piano on the living. He says something. He will show me some trick to play a part easier. That word caughts my eye. Easier. I need that. I look at him, he plays, satisfied of having me back on the room since we start this hour lesson but I feel my arms reek all of the sudden, even when I don´t feel them. And I panicked. If Armie crosses that door and feels my smelly shirt that matches my insensitive arms perfectly I will cut deeper with the blade than I did before.  
And my nightmare is finally brought to life, cause as I search for the piano keys to just learn the part and get the hell out and straight to my room on the freaking hotel I miss them and my whole upper body collapses over the instrument, my face crashing right against it.  
It aches, and the teacher is cursing while he runs to check on me…or the piano, but everything gets even worst when the words “Hi. I´m Armie. You must be Timmothée” echo through the sun filled room.  
It´s Armie freaking Hammer greeting me, three feet away. He is so tall and beautiful…his teeth are white as snow and his fucking eyes are dreamier than wonderland without the scary shit. Oh god, he is smiling, he didn´t saw my incident. Maybe I´ll live. One day at a time.  
I stand, shake his (huge) hand and shyly ask for him to wait to talk till I finish my lesson. In that moment I look at my enraged teacher and he dismisses me as if he was relieved to go.

Armie is here. Someone who speaks english at last. He looks oddly interested on actually hearing the stuff I say. His smile is soft and warm at times, till it turns hot, blinding and plain beautiful. He is so tall but I don´t feel little, he is such a man but doesn´t make me feel like a kid.  
I show him the villa. We ride ours (yes, we steal them) bikes to go everywhere. It gets dark around us, but his smile doesn´t falter. Not even from his eyes. So blue. But happy. I enjoy his company. His hand on my shoulder as greeting every day, his yawn while we lay in the grass, his playful attitude. I can´t believe I still feel these details making my day brighter. I thought the deadline would make me dull. But I find myself being a bit more alive than I was before. That´s dangerous, and I think he is, too.  
Almost a week goes by and we already have talked about pretty much everything. He is so funny, I can´t help but laugh like a pig, making nose noises as the air chokes me. “Sexy as hell, Timmy, way to go!” my mental twin whispers, but Armie doesn´t make me feel insecure for being weird, he pushes me to get odd and odd again. We get gelatto near the house where we´ll be filming most of the scenes. We go to restaurants and order pasta with spicy sauce and then we drink wine. It looks like life has something to offer me, saying “Hey, I can be good to you, pick me” and yet it´s not even my choice to walk away from it. My life sucks as much as a corpse under the sun.  
Tonight it happened again. Armie walked by my side on the streets, the night was splendid, full of stars. He was a bit drunk. I was so amused by his attempt to walk, talk properly and carry the bike back to the hotel, all at the same time, and my face must have glow with floo powder or something, cause he looked at me, realize I was smiling like an idiot and stop dead on his tracks.  
“Timmy..”  
He calls me this way. He asked permission to and I thought I was hearing incorrectly. I was expecting him to be colder. Even when it´s better if he is not. Such a kind guy. So polite and caring, like my mom used to be. It destroys me but in a good way. And I connect them on the back of my head while we are looking at each other without moving anymore... She made me so happy, and he is acting like she did those days, taking care of me without forgetting I have the last word on what I need. I´m so gay. I´m so fucked, but not in the good way.  
“Timmy I really like you” he was so serious, like he just confessed a crime. And he look sober as hell. My smile grow thin, I was doing it again. Thinking about him as if he was single and as if I had some chance whatsoever. Or time to act on it. Yet his adorably pregnant and totally gorgeous wife called him every day and his daughter, little Harper scream “papa” while she cried.  
And yet I hoped. The hex was not broken.  
“I like you too”  
We arrive to the hotel some minutes later, the silence was conforting, and yet something crept on me, like when you think you are forgetting something but you don´t know what.  
I looked at my watch.  
“I was wandering..”he said, but when he followed my eyes to my wrist he added “oh, you busy tonight?”  
“No, why?”  
He chucked. “Would you like to see something on netflix?”  
“Sure, just give me a second”  
We parted, each to our rooms. He would be waiting, I just had to knock. I enter mine and closed the wooden door behind me. I exhaled noisily. “Ok, what is going on? You can´t handle him being nice to you, right? You know that he is married but you think of him in such dirty situations? Are you that sick and pathetic?” My twin was unleashed again. And even when I had barely been fantasing with sloppy kisses, I felt like a pervert in a second, like a home wrecker too.  
“You are sick and you will infect him too”  
The evil thing was speaking again, so loud and yet no one else knew his voice. It echoed on the walls of my head and I felt as if my legs couldn´t take my weight anymore. I tried to gain forces by walking. I took my meds, I drank the most bitter water I had ever tasted and then I locked myself on the bathroom.  
I knew what I had to do, but Armie was waiting, it couldn´t take long. I washed my face with trembling hands, I take my razor blade out, perfect, slim and silver. It couldn´t be on my wrist, it would show, it´s summer for fuck´s sakes and Luca wants us to be so exposed to the sun and camera. I looked at myself on the full lenght mirror. My dark curls were dripping water over my forehead, my face look like a ghost´s, more than ever. I reached for my short shorts´ sleeve and I pulled it up, exposing my thighs fully. I inhaled; I blinked for a second and I cut there, where the legs and the groin connect, the blade on my right hand. Not to deep, not to long. Just enough to remember I was alive. Just enough to never think of Armie in that way again. At that moment, the pain inspired me. I was like a light switch. I could turn the memories off, I could turn him off. Even when I liked him. Even when I was falling for him. Even when he was expecting me on the other side of the corridor, even when I was dying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timothée thinks about the movie, his problems, his arms and how he would love to use them to hug Armie tightly.

Second week of getting to know each other just started, Armie is the best company for my sarcastic ass and Luca is all over the place, but we love him.

Stressed as fuck, he calls a meeting. We arrive at the house, we talk about the book and the script, the scenes and the order we prefer to shoot in. We agree on a chronological order, which is a strange luxury for most productions. Then Armie goes back to the hotel to fulfil his daily contact with the luckiest woman alive, Elizabeth Chambers, and I stay because Luca is about to kill someone. So I let him explode around me. He is too kind to ask for it anyways. But knowledge is power (?).

 I sit again.And he goes over it all. 

Every little aspect of the filming days appears on his precious blue folder. I'm surprise when he makes me join him by the living room table next to my poor piano and I see his handwriting, extremely curly and tiny, scheduling every hour of every day for the next two months on an attempt of giving the crew an idea of when he needs them to be prepared. It's so chaotic I can't believe it belong to him. He seems organised even on the smallest details. 

I'm about to tell him how he could write another bible, a much more gay one, (he is really open about pretty much everything) with all the ink he used for this planner when he explains the following stuff with a deathly glare on and his hair all tousled. Nothing is one hundred per cent official yet, not even the first day of filming, nor the rehearsals' day (though Luca insist there won't be many) but he is trying to be as responsible as possible with everyone's time. We just know there'll be a day where Aciman's novel will be on theaters . Just that. So, Luca adds, if someone needs to get back home before the first days of june, he begs them to try fixing those other plans and stay. He texts Armie about it. "I forgot that, merda!" He is very intense about giving us both time to get to know each other (a month or so, and I scream on my mind with joy for that) and by the number of scenes we are going to shoot, he doesn't think we get it done on less than thirty days of work. The worst part is that most of the movie happens outdoors and even if you are filming on a room, you have windows everywhere, so if it rains we have to call it a day. The movie weather is supposed to be sunny as hell, with only one scene where it rains and a few shooted at night. The last one is on a snowy winter we are clueless about. We only know this: we depend on a summatory of factors that make us think maybe this proyect will change our nationalily for good, and no one is crying and homesick. No one refuses to stay: Italy is a loving mistress.

So we do our work. "Know him", Luca said. And obviously I would. First of all because I need to, my performance depends on that to make my Elio adore his Oliver for real. La Guardia and Columbia thought me the importance of a good true chemistry between characters so when I wanted to do something, I'd do it with Armie (!). I punch myself mentally. Some more blood loss will erase and refresh that guilty desire, all at the same time. And secondly, we are talking about Armie fucking Hammer for Christ's sakes: who wouldn't like to meet him? 

So, after thinking about what my heart was actually beating for me to do with him, I went to the hotel to study the script one more time.

Armie saw me on the corridor, about to open my room door and ask if we could read it together.

"I just hang up my phone"

I'm not sure why he tells me that, a guilty look on his face. I forget about it, it makes no sense to me, I must have read him wrong.

Yet I'm still looking at him, my right hand grasping the keys.

"Oh, ok. And yeah, of course, man. Come in"

As I enter and close the door I turn around and  inmediatelly think "there's just one chair and is a very unconfortable one, no made for sitting at all, so we probably should sit on the bed and not that plastic torture device" I say something close to that and we do it.  
He must fast, as if his second name was anxiety and I feel surprised and slow. He looks at me as if he was asking for permission to exchange a look, and I'm sure there's guilt there.

Again. 

Wtf.

In the same moment my ass hits the jumpy mattress I decide there's not enough place in the room for the two of us. Not because he is a giant, but because he is a person. A very good looking, god like man, with kind words and hugs and time for me. And I can't handle feeling so much goodness when I myself find my life so useless.

Even less when he looks like he has some important stuff to tell me.

Should I ask? Is it better to speak or…?

Well, I can't quote Call me by your name now. I mean, even if I speak I'm already dying. And suddenly my eyes are dark, as if phantom sunglasses were settled over my nose. I feel it.He feels it inmediately.

The gloom, after two seconds, is fear. He knows me too well, he senses my mood swings. He shouldn't. It's not ok.

Yet he is warm. And he reflects my fears on his own face, as if he was aware of the whole sadness and dread hiding under jokes and quotes and curls. 

And I still know that even when I have this shitty depression thing, and death knocking on my door impatiently, I am so lucky. Why? Because we are sitting on my hotel room because I was hired for this Luca Guadagnino proyect where I (well, I mean Elio) fall (falls) in love with Armie's character, and then kisses him and then…oh shit. We are still too close. He'll see my inner child amazed by him, his face wet still, wet from crying in the dark...

My thigh is against his, my arm touching his arm and crushing elbows becomes a sport for us again. (I should write chronicles about that). But Armie doesn't seem to have a problem with that and when I realise I only feel him against my leg I hate my dying arms more than ever. 

Mike, my best friend and doctor says there's nothing wrong with them. But my new shrink, Dr Strauss told him a very funny story that looks more like a creepypasta post than an actual medical problem. He explained me about a syndrome where people think they are dead or inmortal. I laughed like a maniac (not funny doc!) and then told them very seriously "I'm sure my arms have no pulse, I don't feel them, I sense there's something rotten in my body, I'm positive about it".

The first day I mentioned it, Mike smirked with his jerky friend side winning, and my family freaked when I cried about my arm's state after dinner. They thought I was playing some prank or character, like the lying shepherd. They were not happy. But when I insisted for two weeks straight, he gave me an appointment with Dr Strauss. 

The rest is history: drugs for my depression but no cure for the badly diagnosed disorder. It was obvious and very practical to them: no one could heal me or give me an actual explanation, but every day I had to force myself to eat, bath and act.

Everyday I had to fight the impulse of saying "hey, I know I don't need to do this stuff: I can not die again, nor blossom to the living state as Frankenstein's creature, so why bother? Why am I taking care of myself?, I know this is an illusion inside the coffin" and yet I remained silent. At first I didn't know why I wasn't finding any failure on this matrix situation, or why I was so secretive about it. But then I understood I was not so sure I was healthy (a healthy corpse at least, to stick with my beliefs on the matter). 

What if the lie was not the reality I was experiencing, the birds singing, my mom's kisses on my curls, the way Bruno Mars moved on his badass videos? What if my senses were fucked because my brain was screwed? What if my sensations were the ones lying? 

After five months of this psyco journey I was having second thoughts about that syndrome, to put it lightly. So I searched for some explanation of how it made you feel, just in case. And I found it's a negation disorder, a rare mental illness. They called it Cotard delusion, after the french doctor who discover it. I read a bit more, then called Dr Strauss and ask everything about it. He said wikipedia was right. "We didn't find a cure yet, but there are some successful treatments.Some more severe than others". 

Since then I am doing what he thought best: I take the meds and I take care of myself, but most of the times I still think, after a year under care, that I'm made for the worms. Pushing daisies style. 

I think my sense of humor is intact, tho.

But my face is boiling like crazy when I stop remanising and found myself back in the hotel room, the script over my nightstand and Armie by my side, asking if I am ok as he takes my hand on his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so much fun to write, please let me know what you think


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get complicated.

Time had passed so fast since we met each other, but at the same time I wish it never ends. I hadn't felt so happy (24/7, every single second of each day) in my life, and now I could see things under the filter of a different par of glasses.  
I wanted to live so bad. I wasn't just wishing for pain to end. I wanted to live for the sake of living, to feel things, even the bad ones. I knew they where worth it because everytime I spent with Armie was magical, dream-like, beautiful, and I knew that was just one spoon full of sugar: there was so much more in store.   
In an instant I felt hope making its way out through my guts, as if it were saying "hey, I'm here, I wasn't dead, just sleeping".

Well, what a nightmare was my mind having.

In that moment, since Armie had touched me, I understood that even if we kept on like that, no more than friends, for a lifetime, I would still be the luckiest guy in the world. The lights were off, the sky already getting dark. Both so confortable next to each other. My hand covered by his. Armie and me. My hotel room bed. 

"Timmy what's wrong?"

"Nothing"

"Hey…" he started as I let my head fall on his massive shoulder, trying to make me talk. "Timmy you are really important for me and…I know I'm new in your life and you can tell me to walk away or shut up whenever you want but I would like to be of assistance, to help you when you are…"

I heard it, I swear I did, no white noise on my mind… and that's why I went nuts. I throw him back on the bed with one swift move that led me to be straddling his legs, as if I was struck by lightning into that position. But I reached for him before his head could hit the mattress.  
And I hugged him fiercely, not to hide my face again, even when I should be ashamed of my doings, but to press our bodies closer than every drop of water ever were with its sisters on the sea. 

So he was basically sitting but with me lingering on his upper body, as a sleepy koala.

Thumbs up for me.

I panicked for a second, understanding this contact was out of place for people who knew themselves for a month or so, especially if we weren't acting our parts, but the nerves didn't get to my limbs because I had realised it all and I trusted my body for once, instead of my mind and its fears.

And...to tell the truth about that moment…well, I felt under a dome of some sorts. I didn't fucking care about shit, for once in my life. Why?. Because I had him, Armie!, there and he was hugging me back. And his enormous hands were like crowds on Japan's more chaotic streets: all over my back, like little ants walking slow but sure of where to go. And he wasn't even taking advantage or anything, not even thinking of going south. I could feel him being purely loving, without one inch of fulfilled convinience in exchange. And then I thought "he is not gay, so there are no fantasies he could live up by touching me". He was simply making me feel good, better. And I loved him for that.That instant changed me forever.

"You know how much I adore you, right?" his muffled voice asked, being crashed against my shoulder. I let go a bit to watch him in the eyes, silenced for ever.  
He searched on my pupils, in the dark, for an answer. He sounded and looked anxious, scared.

"You know that, don't you? It would kill me to think I'm not making it clear enough".

"I think you just were" I whispered, looking down between us, his gaze to intense. And then, looking back up I added "I'm really sorry for those times where I get distant or tired or sad, and I walk away. I know I worry you. I just can't help it sometimes, but it's not an excuse, I won't do that again" 

I became self conscious of the fact that I was doing something like that on that very moment and I tried to push myself out of his arms while saying "Nor will I climb on top of you with a wave of euphoria leaving you more confused".

"You said you wouldn't walk away" he pleaded, looking at me, hugging me still. He broke my armor (if I had some part left) with that. I searched with my eyes for an answer. All around me. I didn't knew what to do not to break my promise or get him hurt in someway. 

"I don't know how to do this, sharing stuff…I feel my problems end up hurting you too"

He knew what I meant. That day when we stay for hours at night, stretched out in the frizzing wet grass, on the middle of nowhere, our bikes close. Just talking, and enjoying our silence at times. We were wearing sweaters and lots of layers of various types of fabric because out of nowhere it was cold and Armie was touching my wrist with his fingers while we talked about how Elio and Oliver and just every human being on this planet was like an onion with different sheets of knowledge, and sensations, and emotions. And he looked at me and he laughed like a mad man. So I asked what was happening, a smile forming in my lips, and I tickled him because he wasn't answering. So he started rolling a bit, making an impression of a living LOL, and he begged me to stop my evilness, ending curled up closer to my face than before, breathless, both facing each other, smiling.

"I was just thinking that you are the best onion ever. Layers and layers of clothes even on our romantic italian summer"

And I had laughted at first, but suddenly I was gripping the neck of his shirt for some imaginary sort of balance while I cryed my eyes off…and ass too.

Armie was petrified to the spot and then he warmed me up with a perfect embrace while he repeated "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, l'm sorry". I was so emotional and I couldn't explain why. And maybe I was soffocating him by pulling at that shirt… And he was regretting talking, even when it was a harmless joke, and was so worried for me.

He wasn't worried for the awkward situation I was displaying there for him to witness, it was not cringy for him. 

The guy was worried for me. For my happiness, for how my past had been. For what an onion could mean to me.

"Timmy" he said slowly, and we are back on the hotel room, when I hugged him out of nowhere and he accepted it. 

I looked at him as if I were trying to say "I know kindness has limits too".

Then he carresed my face so tenderly...

And he tried again, his face full of love.

"You don't have to change those things for me, those habits or improvised situations…it's for you. I don't like knowing it's much more probable that you go and get curled up on a ball of sheets, crying till you finally sleep when you are sad than actually telling me, or anybody for that matter, that something is wrong…" he said, his eyes full of tears.

"And I don't say this so I get to know your secrets so I can gossip, I would never do that…"

He trails off and mumbles "It's ok if you don't trust me…" and I jump out of my skin while I scream that I trust him with my life (which makes his heart burst and I feel it) but that I don't want to whine at him or make his life more complicated than it is with my crap.

And he whispers "Nonsense" and kisses me on the lips very lighly, very lovingly and quickly but at the same time not sexual, or weird, or pervy.   
Something crosses our faces, like when you turn on a light and rapidly decide to turn it off instead.  
Something settles on our silence, and he continues.

"I know what it feels to think you are lonely, forgotten by the world, feeling things that no one else felt on history, but believe me, you are not alone, love…I love you, I care so much about you, and I'm not even alone at this…Luca is about to adopt you." 

He is smiling now, but uncertain of his words' results, doubting if I feel better now, if he was making it worse. He had no idea. 

And I wanted to tell him and show him how much I loved him back but instead I started sobbing, hiding my face with my hands, while he kept me close to his chest, worried as fuck I'm sure.

"S-shit, Armie I-I'm succesf-(hiccup)-fully breaking m-my promise"

He didn't say a word, he only rubbed my back softly, lulling me.

"I did not w-wanted to wo-worry you anymore" I explained while I dry my tears, those traitors, numerous rebels, out of my face with my sleeves.

"Forget about the world Timmy, about your people in America, about the movie, about Luca and me…". And I want to say I can't but it's hard to stop sobbing and he is talking still and I need him to listen to me because he is making me believe in things I didn't thought were important, life-changing, true or full of beauty. And he doesn't seem to hear my thoughts in that moment. And I get angry with myself for being so helpless in front of that man, to him for making those magicals things to me, and I'm choking on my tears, so I do what he did before.

I kiss him.

But it's not just a peck on the lips.

It's him who, after a few seconds, pushes me away, one palm flat against my chest, while my hands seem to have travelled to his hair without my permission.

I can't believe myself.

I'm going to hell.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! Enjoy!

"I shouldn't have…" 

That's all I say before I'm on my feet again, trying to put some distance between us. "Such a bad person", sights my evil twin inside my head. 

A monster, as I always thought I was.

A beast, without a Disney version of my life to make me look like a human again after the hex is broken. There is no curse here, this is what I am: a shitty guy with a cute face and a polite, nervous, introverted personality. No fangs or claws, just human nature.

But it´s not like I say this and in half an hour I will be dinning with my peace of mind reestablished and some silly thought displaying on my head: I didn´t make some stupid little mistake, I fucked everything up with someone I care so much about... Someone who offered himself to help. Who cares about me.

And it's like I have ruined everything. The whole project, even when the filming is yet to come. Luca's baby would be aborted for my selfishness. The trusting crew and the loving cast have been betrayed by someone who said "hey I'm part of this big family" just to reveal a wolf-like side when everyone was sleeping.

And it's not just about the people in Crema.

It's about his family too.

Humble, kind, beautiful Armie Hammer has a family.

He had it before I met him. He, Mrs. Chambers and little Harper, a blond angel who would be the older sister soon. Because Armie´s wife is pregnant. She's so pretty, smart, a very female member of this world (HE IS NOT GAY IN THE LEAST) and a feminist too. I'm not like her at all. Well the feminist part is a duty for any equality lover but apart from that, Liz (a queen worthy name) is everything I'm not. She always looks like she just landed the earth, coming back after a runaway show on heaven. She's fierce and well educated, has the best manners ever. She says what she feels and thinks without being rude or disrespectful. 

She is carrying his baby boy on her belly. His name will be Ford.

She has a ring like the one on Armie´s hand. That hand held mine, trusting, helping me, as if I was the victim of some nightmare. What a bitter backfire for both of us.

I truly tried to think of me as a harmless person.

But my twin was right. 

And I didn´t have any right to kiss him, because Liz is his past, present and future. She has Armie on her bed every night, loving her. She is so lucky.

She is oil, I'm water. We never mix. We are nothing alike.

Yet we both love Armie. I see how she looks at him on every virtual conversation, how she listens Armie's stories about our adventures here, even when it's clearly late and she wants to sleep. I feel her longing to have him by her side again but trying to mask it because Liz knows her husband loves his work. I see those things because I recognize that look on my own face when I talk to him, when I listen to him. 

Body memory sucks.

And even when I'm thinking out loud for a while now, not quite hearing my own voice but surely telling him all this rambling without making any sense, tripping over my own words and crying all at the same time, even then…he is not running away. He is not yelling nor cursing. He is actually walking my way, as if he wanted to hug me or do something equally nice, but I feel like a deer trapped by the bright front lights of a moving car, getting closer and closer.

I panic, but he knows all of this. He knows I'm like an emotional rollercoaster. He takes me by the hand and he guides me back to the bed. We sit.  
And it looks like I just time travelled. Both very close, sitting and settling on this intimate atmosphere we get to create. And it´s not for the characters or part of the developing get-to-know-each-other process to get the movie feeling right. No, this is actually happen to ourselves, Timothée and Armand without any effort or warning. And it makes me feel warm inside, with some sense of hope for everything. The world, the power of love and kindness, the human species…

But I'm suddenly so angry again, because I´ not a child anymore and I can see how inmature my behavior was nonetheless and I can't take it anymore. I yelled this to him. I tell him I was better when I was a teenager. More confident, funnier, explosive. I wasn´t a fucking stupid coward. I had no fear and no one seemed to make me feel weak, while he, Armie, made me strongly weak and certainly doubtful. Sane words from a crazy man, that are crazy as he is.

So Armie did what everyone would do in his position. He sighted, he raised his hands as if he was about to put them on my shoulders and shake me to death but instead he grab my neck softly. For a second, palms on my throat, his eyes trying to figure out some complicated calculus problem.

Some seconds passed and he let go, then looked down to his trousers front pocket and his hand found a folded paper inside.   
He seemed so british at that moment. I didn´t know why but he wouldn't have look more hiddlestonesque even if he took a tea bag out of that pocket.

So….  
Armie unfolded the paper and started reading out loud while I kept on telling him how wrong and disrespectful I was towards him and his family. Talking again, talking shit he was clearly not interested on hearing, shit that was pouring over his deep sensual voice.

Wait, holy crap---

What he read was fucking shocking.

“Wife, today I met him. He is so young, looks younger than his video self, has longer hair, and he is so precious. Luca is giving us like a month to get to know each other. That's rare as Fifi's ass and I just.."

Armie stopped, looking unnerved all of the sudden. His gaze found my face as I stared at his lips and straight and serious as the fly of a tea party member´s trousers, his mouth whispered "Fifi is my childhood deformed ass cat. Don't tell Luca about her"

I almost choked. Laughter could be heard in the whole villa. Nerves and shit, not funny at all (?). I had so many questions, on the other hand, so I opened my mouth to express myself but Armie looked away, facing the letter again, a small smile on his lips, and kept reading.

"I just can´t contain myself. I feel happy for this project, everyone is so nice...but I miss you so much, too..."

Pause. He continued, but in a slightly different voice.

"Husband, tell me about Mr Chalamet. Luca says he won´t tell me anything else about him. (Yes, I talked to him multiple times over the phone. International calls are expensive, but Timothée´s gossip is worthy of that and more). Guadagnino (as my mad side calls him) thinks I would collect much richer information if I ask you instead. So, please do tell, ok?. In other news, your presents arrived just in time. Harper loves her griffindor scarf and that little Hermione portrait your mom painted for her. Ford kicks really hard, he misses your voice, as I do, very much. Morning sickness is controlled and the sun is shining over our heads as I write this, on the park with Harper by my side. We love you. I love you. Off topic: when are you guys filming the first scenes? Does Timmy know about his number one fan? (Me, of course) Is Luca crazy already? Enjoy Italy, love, and be a great Oliver”.

Armie smiled at me. I was shocked at Liz talking about me.

“Wife, you would love this place, it´s always so lovely to hear italian people talk. They are warm as the weather, and funnier than us. Timothée likes them too. I think he likes me, I already love him, he is such an easy person to be around, he understands everything before I explain it, even when I´m talking about my own thoughts. His eyes show hunger, Liz. Such passion in a nineteen year-old could be dangerous, but I guess he is also very prudent and respectful because I feel safe around him, and he doesn´t need to be rude or distasteful to be funny. You must come and meet him. He already loves you, but I didn´t tell him about your little obsession”.

He stopped reading and said “then I went on talking about how I miss her and Harper…”

Something changed. Armie looked at me intensely.

“Why did you kissed me?”

His voice, so small, echoed all over the dark room. I was on guard again, preparing my mask, building my walls.  
He sensed it.

“Maybe I should not be asking you this. I know I kissed you first, but I wasn´t implying more than reassurance at that moment…”

I swallowed hard, still looking at him, still mute.

“But then you kissed me…”

I felt something rare on his words, something hiding, unsaid. And the connections started working on my brain because I was finally answering…and yet I wasn´t..

“I´m really sorry Armie, I really shouldn´t have. I wasn´t thinking, I won´t do that again. Please forgive me, forget about it”

“But I´m not angry. You didn´t do something wrong, Timmy..” he explained, almost...pained?

That thing was on his voice again, creeping at his face, changing his gesture.

“Of course I did!. You are in love with Liz, Armie. You are married, I overstepped”.

And I thought I was so right when I said that. I thought I understood everything.

But Armie waited in silence, as if he was collecting himself and then read, slowly and clearly on the silent night

“PS. I want to kiss Timmy so bad, Liz”

I knew nothing anymore.

But the rare thing he carried sounded a lot like hope.


End file.
